Canada's Olympic sweetheart Karen Magnussen living a nightmare after accident 'ruined' her life

Former Olympian skater Karen Magnussen shown in 2010 surrounded by her students. A year later in 2011 she became permanently disabled after being exposed to ammonia at the North Shore Winter Club ice rink.bill keay
/ PROVINCE PNG

Former Olympian skater Karen Magnussen shown at the rink in 2010, the year before her exposure to ammonia at the North Shore Winter Club ice rink in 2011.bill keay
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1972 file photo of Karen Magnussen being welcomed home after a silver medal win at the Sapporo Olympics, as well as being greeted for her birthday, by U. S. champion Janet Lynn (left), and world figure skating champion Trixi Schuba of Austria (right).Gordon Sedawie
/ PNG File Photo

Karen Magnussen , former world Champion figure skater shown teaching Taiana O'Hara, then 12, at the North Shore Winter Club in 2001.ARLEN REDEKOP
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Karen Magnussen, former Canadian Olympic figure skating gold medalist teaches young skaters at the North Shore Winter Club in 2000.Les Bazso
/ Province

Skating star Karen Magnussen picks up some tips from 3 1/2 year old Megan Gordon at the Hollyburn Skating Club in 1974. Megan was performing at the Bayshore's Fantasy in White display, while Karen was in Vancouver rehearsing for the upcoming production of the Ice Capades.
/ PROVINCE

Karen Magnussen, SILVER MEDALLIST AT SAPPORO OLYMPICS 1972.
/ PNG

When the Winter Olympics were in Vancouver four years ago, Karen Magnussen was one of the fans sitting in the Pacific Coliseum taking in the figure skating.

With the Sochi Games approaching, she’ll again be an avid and passionate fan, watching world champion Patrick Chan and the rest of Team Canada take on the world on TV.

But in the intervening four years, almost nothing else has stayed the same for Magnussen, the 1973 world champion women’s singles figure skater.

Her world turned upside down on Nov. 28, 2011. It started as a typical Monday morning for Magnussen as she prepared to teach some young skaters at the North Shore Winter Club. Then, at about 5:45 a.m., she was hit by a blast of ammonia from the club’s refrigeration unit.

The ammonia filled her lungs, searing them, along with her vocal cords.

“It’s ruined my life,” she said recently, sitting in the living room of her family home in North Vancouver’s Upper Lonsdale neighbourhood.

Since that day, when she was taken to hospital after she made sure her students got out, she has not been able to work because of the damage to her lungs. WorkSafe B.C. has since classified her as permanently disabled.

“I’d never left skating from the time I was seven years old,” said Magnussen, now 61.

'WASN'T SOMETHING I WAS GOING TO LEAVE'

“And I wasn’t going to. It wasn’t something I was going to leave at 65.”

She points to the legendary Ellen Burka, who coached world champions Elvis Stojko, Toller Cranston and daughter Petra Burka. Ellen Burka is 92 and still coaching at Toronto’s Granite Club.

“I could have still been coaching into my 80s and 90s,” Magnussen said.

Magnussen’s skating career began when she was seven, her mom driving her across town to Kerrisdale Arena, where the lessons took place on sheets of pebbly curling ice.

“The ice was anything but perfect, but I think that made you tough,” she said. “You weren’t like a hot-house plant. It gave you character.”

The first pair of quality skates she ever wore are bronzed and on display in her house.

Magnussen won a bronze medal at the world championships in 1971. She went on to win silver medals at both the worlds and the Olympics in 1972 and then gold at the world championships in 1973.

SKATED AT COLISEUM BEFORE CANUCKS ARRIVED

The City of Vancouver used to allow her free early morning ice time at the Coliseum, before Canucks players would arrive for practice.

Magnussen retired after her world gold and skated professionally with ice shows for a few years before settling into her coaching career, first in Boston, where her husband of 36 years, Tony Cella, was based, then back on the North Shore.

Magnussen coached with the same steely sense of purpose that drove her to the top of the world in her sport.

Want to know what drives her crazy?

“When I hear an announcer say, ‘They performed a personal best!’

“I hate that phrase. It just drives me nuts. I want to throw something at the TV when I hear that. That’s not your aim, to do your personal best. No, your aim is to be in the top three. Every one of those athletes is there to win a gold, silver or bronze medal.”

NOW VIRTUALLY HOUSEBOUND

The elite athlete turned coach, who always had such determination to succeed, is now housebound except for trips to the hospital or, occasionally, to the mall with her husband.

She can’t even walk her dogs, a Chihuahua named Frankie and a Pomeranian named Pacino, around the block due to the side effects of the drugs she’s on.

According to B.C. Safety Authority, the ammonia leak that injured Magnussen was caused when a condenser pump control unit began to fail. Lack of proper training for employees who dealt with the refrigeration unit was also cited.

Magnussen started coughing violently after the accident, and the coughing continued day and night for eight months before she was put on prednisone, a powerful steroid that comes with a long list of side effects.

“It was 24/7,” she said of her bone-rattling cough.

“I never slept that whole time while the doctors tried various things.”

She has been taking prednisone for a year and a half. The potent drug’s nasty side effects include weight gain and swelling of the face.

Magnussen, who has gained 60 pounds since she started on prednisone, declined to have her photo taken for this story mainly for those reasons.

PEOPLE 'WERE VERY CRUEL, VERY HURTFUL'

After she appeared in a TV news story in December, some people “were very cruel, very hurtful” about her physical appearance, said her husband, Cella.

“Ammonia is a strong irritant,” said Dr. Christopher Carlsten, a respiratory expert at the UBC school of medicine and one of the doctors treating Magnussen.

“The reason it was so powerful for Karen is she had a large exposure that penetrated very deeply into the mucous membrane of her lungs.

“Unfortunately, she’s needed steroids. The pills are associated with side effects, especially when taken for months at a time like she has needed.”

Prednisone, which can cause mental confusion, fatigue and weakness, is associated with the rheumatoid arthritis she now suffers from as her immune system attacks her joints. She has also developed temporal arteritis, a dangerous swelling of the blood vessels that supply the head and brain.

The ammonia exposure also triggered a condition known as central sensitivity syndrome, which affects how the brain and vocal cords interact, Carlsten said.

ANY VAPOUR CAN TRIGGER BAD REACTION

In Magnussen’s case, he added, that means inhaling any vapour — such as diesel exhaust or perfume — could trigger a reaction similar to the one she had to the ammonia.

“This can go on for years,” said Carlsten. “That’s the worst part. It’s hard to get rid of. It’s a sad story. She’s too young to be disabled for a lifetime. I try to get her to keep her chin up.”

Magnussen, who was twice named Canada’s female athlete of the year and is an Officer in the Order of Canada, thinks she knows now what all her hard work, all those early mornings training on the ice, was really for.

At the time, she thought all that discipline was about giving her a chance at a world championship or an Olympic medal.

“But as I look back, it really was all to prepare me to get through this,” she said. “My whole life’s work, everything I’ve worked for, when I think about it — and I’ve had a lot of time to sit and think — was to prepare me to be able to get through this and not curl up in a ball from it all.

“For me, in sports, you’ve got this incredible fight inside of you, this fire that no matter what you have to tackle later on in life, you’re able to get through.

'A LOT OF KIDS DEPENDED ON ME'

“It has ruined my life, that’s one shame,” she said. “The other shame is a lot of kids depended on me as a coach.”

In addition to the figure skaters she coached, Magnussen taught hockey players about edges, power, balance and stops and starts on the ice.

Seventy-five players who have been drafted by the NHL have learned from her, she said, including former Canucks Cliff Ronning and Dave Babych, and their sons Ty Ronning (Vancouver Giants) and Cal Babych (Calgary Hitmen).

There were about 150 youngsters skating under Magnussen’s tutelage when the tragedy struck, she said.

“I just loved it, as cold as it was and as crappy as the rinks were sometimes, the kids made it all worth it.”

She and her family wish the North Shore Winter Club had reached out after the accident and had been more vigilant about maintenance prior to it.

Magnussen says she would take legal action against the North Shore Winter Club if the incident weren’t a WorkSafe B.C. case.

“The [Workers’ Compensation] Board was founded and based on a compromise in 1917,” a WorkSafe spokeswoman said. “Workers gave up their right to sue and employers agreed to fund a no-fault insurance system.

WOULD SUE WINTER CLUB IF SHE COULD

“The benefit to workers is they receive timely health care and wage-loss support for work-related injuries or illnesses paid for by the Accident Fund. Previously, a worker’s only option when injured was to sue their employer at their own expense.”

Magnussen, who is considered an employee by WorkSafe even though she was an independent contractor working at the rink, wishes she had that option.

“Absolutely, I would have pursued that after what they put me through, after they took away my life,” she said.

Winter Club general manager David Long said the club has no comment.

These days, Magnussen is battling WorkSafe to get the money she says she’s owed.

She’s buoyed by the emails, letters and phone calls of support she has received.

“Hopefully,” said her husband, “things will work out in the future, that’s all we can hope for.

“That she gets off the medicine and be able to walk around the block.”

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